Administration will propose to city council at the Dec. 2 regular meeting that Prince George complete the outright purchase of a grader it has been renting for the last three years.
According to a document attached to the agenda for the meeting, the city has a fleet of seven graders. Of those, six are owned by the city and one is rented.
“The rationale behind the rented unit is to augment the city’s fleet capacity during the busy snow and ice control months,” the document says. “The unit is then parked for the summer months and the monthly payments are suspended.”
The grader, Unit 8312, has been rented since 2021. Between then and now, the city has spent $242,753 in rent payments on it.
The rental agreement was initially scheduled to end this October, with the city starting to rent a new unit.
Prince George now has the option to take full ownership of the grader by extending its payments for a further two years at a further cost of $227,500.
“Fleet Services has analyzed the unit and because of the low amount of operating hours and excellent condition of the unit, administration determined that it is more advantageous financially for us to purchase Unit 8312 rather than go to a tender for a new replacement unit,” administration’s report says.
Administration estimates that the grader has 10 years of life left and could have a disposal value of $100,000 at that point.
